1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to the field of interactive software applications, and in particular to methods and systems for facilitating language translation of text fields within interactive software applications. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to methods and systems which permit the automatic extraction of text fields from interactive software applications for translation.
2. Description of the Related Art
The global nature of the world today has created an increased market for computer hardware and software applications which may be simply translated into a large number of foreign languages. Indeed, National Languages Support (NLS) is increasingly important, as the market for data processing systems is ever expanding. While the demands upon hardware systems are minimal and are often solved by the provision of special keyboard characters, the large textual content of many software applications leads to a more difficult problem.
The translation of a software application into a foreign language for utilization in a foreign market is generally accomplished utilizing a batch process wherein the text may be edited with a text editor. The resultant translation must then be verified with a simulation of the display screens of the software application, or by executing the program after translation has occurred. Additional changes brought about by variations induced due to the contextual nature of a text entry, or as a result of simple size differences between a textual entry in two different languages must be edited in the batch process and the verification program repeated.
The simulation of computer program external interfaces in order to permit the interface to be evaluated prior to encoding the software is the primary method for creating an interactive software application in a foreign language. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,845,665, issued to Heath et al., and assigned to the Assignee herein, discloses a technique for the simulation of a computer program external interfaces which is intended to permit users to evaluate the design and alter the display screens prior to committing to an encoding of the software code.
Another technique has recently been proposed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/687,257, entitled In-Context Translation for Personal Computer Applications, filed Apr. 18, 1991, and assigned to the Assignee herein. This technique permits textual entries within an interactive software application to be examined in context during the translation process to greatly enhance the quality of the resultant translation. By observing the textual entries within the context of the display screen, and by observing the physical limitations of the field, or display area in which the textual entry is to be displayed, a translator may simply and efficiently select optimal language for converting textual entires of an interactive software application into a selected foreign language.
A problem which exists in certain interactive software applications is the location or extraction of textual entries in applications which utilize certain types of user-interface structures, such as dialog boxes or menu templates, which are in a physical format which is strongly coupled to the length of text fields within the dialog box or menu template. A method and system are therefore needed which can extract those textual entries for translation while utilizing existing dialog box support structures, but which can dynamically adjust those structures at run time utilizing the translated text obtained from an external source.